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Ray Allen On How Ben Simmons Can Improve His Shooting 

Ben Simmons had taken much of the brunt of the Philadelphia 76ers’ shortcomings in these past NBA playoffs, particularly during the second-round series against the Atlanta Hawks, where the 25-year old Sixers point guard often looked lost and became unreliable in fourth quarters.

In 12 playoff games, Simmons only averaged 11.9 points per game and shot 34% from the free-throw line, missing 48 free throws in total. On the top of that, in the decisive Game 7 of their seven-game series against the Hawks, Simmons passed up a wide open shot that could’ve tied the game during the closing minutes.

Simmons’ disastrous playoff performance has drawn plenty of criticism and even led Sixers head coach Doc Rivers to throw him under the bus, expressing doubts about Simmons’ capability of leading the team to a title as the team’s point guard. 

This led to Simmons cutting ties with the franchise. He won’t report to the Sixers’ training camp and it looks like he won’t ever play another game for them.  But no matter where Simmons ends up, his confidence has to be build up again. Additionally Simmons finally has to work on his jump shot. He now received some great pointers by one of the best to ever shoot it, Ray Allen.

Allen wants Ben Simmons to re-evolve, work on and understand his shot, while saying he should have used the negativity as fuel to develop his shot.

“Ben is such a young player with such a huge upside. The thing I know about shooting is I remember a time when I couldn’t shoot. So from that time till I got to college and then from there on in, I understood what it was that I did. Going forward, that was just work at it, just figure out. So I knew I covered every angle I could on the court because I knew at some point there was going to be a position I was going to be in and I didn’t want that to be a weakness.”